Complaints

Institutions may receive complaints about researchers or the conduct of research, or about the conduct of the Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC). Complaints may be made by participants, researchers, staff of institutions, or others. All complaints should be handled promptly and sensitively.

The Australian code for the responsible conduct of research describes 'research misconduct' and specifies institutional processes for dealing with it.

Where complaints about researchers or research raise the possibility of misconduct fitting this description, they should be dealt with under those processes. Where complaints about researchers are serious and fall outside that description of research misconduct, they should be handled under institutional processes for dealing with other forms of misconduct, for example, harassment of bullying.

All complaints are investigated fully according to due process under the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research and this University. Any complaint you make will be treated in confidence and you will be informed of the outcome.

All participants in research conducted by Southern Cross University should be advised of the above procedure and be given a copy of the contact details for the Complaints Officer. They should also be aware of the ethics approval number issued by the Human Research Ethics Committee.

Complaints about the Human Research Ethics Committee

In the case of a complaint about the Human Research Ethics Committee contact: